Be a Sales Superstar

by Brian Tracy

  In determining time to payback, the prospect has four key questions, spoken or unspoken, that you must answer. The first question is, How much does it cost?

  The second question you must answer in your presentation is, How much do I get back in return for my investment?

  The third question is, How fast do I get this amount back?

  The fourth question is, How sure can I be that what you say is true?

  The greater the clarity with which you can answer these questions, the easier it is for the prospect to buy from you. The fuzzier you are in answering these questions, the harder it is for the customer to buy from you. If neither you nor the customer can figure out the rate and speed of return, no sale will take place.

  As a financial improvement specialist, continually demonstrate and prove how the customer can achieve more of his or her business goals as the result of following your advice and recommendations. Position yourself as an unpaid member of the customer’s staff, helping him or her to increase sales, reduce costs, or boost profits. Show that your product or service is actually “free” in that the customer ultimately gets back far more in dollar terms than he or she pays in the first place. This is a vital key to high-level selling.

  ACTION EXERCISES

  Determine the exact rate of return, in terms of time or money saved or gained from using what you sell. Describe your product or service in terms of how it affects the financial situation of your prospective customer. Think in terms of the direct as well as the indirect financial benefits your customer will enjoy as a result of using your product or service.

  Identify the prospects in your market who can most profit from the financial benefits your product or service can contribute. Focus more of your selling energies on those prospects who can profit the most rapidly from what you sell. Build your sales activities around finding more and more of these prime prospects. Focus continually on “time to payback.”

  11

  Use Educational Selling with Every Customer

  Nature understands no jesting. She is

  always true, always serious, always severe:

  she is always right, and

  the errors and faults are always those of man.

  — JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE

  Amajor reason that prospects do not buy is because they do not fully understand what you are selling and how they can use and benefit from it. Many salespeople assume that after one sales presentation, the prospect is as familiar with the details of the product or service as they are. This can be a big mistake.

  When I was selling participations in real estate investments to senior executives, I falsely assumed that these captains of industry, with hundreds and sometimes thousands of staff, were as knowledgeable about real estate as they were about their own businesses. As a result, I would often breeze through the details of my product and expect them to understand the full range of benefits and advantages of what I was offering.

  It didn’t take me too many lost sales to realize that I had to explain my product in careful detail, exactly as if I was teaching a new subject to a new student, if I wanted to sell it. This was my introduction to the importance of positioning myself as a teacher in the sales process.

  In educational selling, you take a low-pressure/no-pressure approach. You do not try to influence or persuade the customer in any way. You ask good questions and listen closely to the answers. You lean forward and take notes. You position yourself as a teacher and as a helper rather than as a salesperson. The best way to do this is to use the “Show, Tell, and Ask Questions” Method of presenting your product or service.

  Show the Customer

  In the “show” part of the presentation, explain or demonstrate how your product or service works to achieve a particular result or benefit. Get the prospect involved. Ask him or her to do something, try something out personally, or make calculations to prove your points.

  Tell the Customer

  In the “tell” part of the educational selling process, explain the features and benefits of your product or service, using stories, statistics, research results, and anecdotes from other satisfied customers. Like a lawyer, “build a case” for what you are selling, presenting evidence in the form of visual aids or written materials that “prove” the quality and usefulness of your product.

  Ask the Customer

  In the “ask questions” phase, pause regularly to ask questions and invite feedback on what you have presented so far. One mark of top salespeople is that they keep their prospects involved in the sales conversation by continually requesting comments and opinions as they go along. Poor salespeople are often so nervous that they race through their product descriptions without giving the prospect an opportunity to question or object.

  Here is a simple model you can adapt to your own product:

  “Because of this____ (product feature),

  you can____ (product benefit), which

  means____ (customer benefit).”

  For example, imagine you were selling a new office computer. You could say, “Because of this Pentium III microprocessor (product feature), you can run multiple programs simultaneously (product benefit), which means that you can get far more work done in a shorter period of time (customer benefit).”

  When you “show, tell, and ask questions,” you position yourself as an educator rather than as a salesperson. By asking questions, you learn how your customer can be better off by using what you are selling. Your “lesson plan” consists of teaching the customer how he or she can best use your product or service and benefit from it in his or her life and work. With many products, especially technical products with many capabilities, you can build tremendous perceived value by teaching the customer all the different ways that he or she can use your product or service to get even greater results and enjoyment.

  The more competent you become at learning your prospect’s real needs, and the better you teach your customer how to get the very most out of what you sell, the more the customer will like you, trust you, and want to do business with you, over and over again.

  ACTION EXERCISES

  Take out a sheet of paper and draw three lines down the page, creating three equal columns. At the top of each column, write the words “Product Feature,” “Product Benefit,” or “Customer Benefit.”

  List each positive sales feature of your product or service in the first column. In the second column, write the product benefit attached to each product feature. In the third column, define the customer benefit, the answer to the question, What’s in it for me?

  Practice positioning yourself as a “teacher” with your prospects. Focus your presentation on helping your prospect to understand how helpful your product or service can be, trusting fully that if he or she understands completely, the sale will take place automatically.

  12

  Build Megacredibility with Every Prospect

  Honesty is the first chapter

  of the book of wisdom.

  — THOMAS JEFFERSON

  Fully 80 percent of the reason that qualified prospects do not buy a product or service is because they are afraid of making a mistake. As the result of countless negative buying experiences, starting in early childhood, we all have bought something and regretted it afterward. Perhaps we later learned that we had paid too much, had gotten the wrong product for our needs, were unable to get the product serviced or repaired, or had been outright lied to by the salesperson or company.

  Because of this accumulated baggage of unhappy purchase decisions, prospective customers are usually suspicious, skeptical, and distrustful of sales offers, even when they want and need a particular product or service. And the larger and more expensive it is, the more cautious and doubtful they are.

  Four factors exacerbate this hesitancy with any sales offer. The first is the size of the purchase. The more it costs, the more of a risk the prospect perceives in buying it.

  The second risk factor is the length of life of the product. If it is mean
t to last for three or more years— and once it is purchased, it would be too expensive to buy another—the customer will naturally be hesitant to make a buying decision. The risk of making a mistake and being stuck with the wrong product is great.

  The third risk factor is the number of people involved. Everyone has had the experience of making a buying decision and then being criticized for it by other people. Sometimes, they just complain about the choice. At other times, they point out how bad a decision it was considering other products or services available. The worst of all is when the decision turns out so badly that the buyer’s position in his or her company is threatened. That is why IBM’s most famous advertisement is “No one ever got fired for choosing IBM!”

  The fourth risk factor is whether or not the purchaser is a first-time buyer. Has the customer ever bought or used this particular product or service? Has he or she ever bought it from you or your company? In either case, if the answer is no, the perceived risk is much higher.

  The antidote to this natural and normal skepticism and lack of trust or confidence in any sales offer is credibility. The solution is to build up the customer’s concept of you as a completely believable person selling a totally trustworthy product. Credibility is the core issue in any purchase decision. But credibility alone is not enough.

  Today, it takes credibility for you just to get an appointment with a customer. But it takes megacredibility for you to get the sale. Megacredibility is defined as credibility that is far above and beyond an appeal to quality and service. It is credibility that is far greater than anything your competitors might be offering at the same time.

  Megacredibility is an idea or feeling that can be, and must be, created in the heart and mind of the prospect. It is the critical intangible factor that underlies all successful sales efforts. Megacredibility is the outstanding quality of high-performing salespeople. And fortunately, megacredibility is something you can build, step by step, in every interaction with the customer.

  There are five keys to building megacredibility. Each is vitally important. Each can determine the sale, depending upon whether you capitalize on it or not. And ignorance of these key factors is no excuse.

  You Are the Key to the Sale

  The first form of megacredibility is the credibility of the salesperson, yourself. Your personal credibility is so important that your appearance and your personality alone can make or break the sale.

  Personal megacredibility has four parts: dress, grooming, accessories, and attitude. Each of these ingredients is essential. A deficiency in any one of these areas can be enough to cost you the sale.

  Dress for Success

  Customers are very visual. They seek clues from the way you look to determine how trustworthy and competent you are, and through your appearance they judge the trustworthiness and capabilities of your product, service, and company. Fully 95 percent of the first impression you make on a customer will be made by your clothes. This is because your clothes cover 95 percent of your body. For this reason, top salespeople “dress for success” on every occasion and with every customer. They leave nothing to chance.

  Follow the leaders, not the followers. Look at the top salespeople in your field and then dress the way they do. As a general rule, you should spend twice as much on your clothes as you do now and buy half as many. You will like these good clothes so much that you will wear them more often, get more use and value from them, and feel better and more confident every time you put them on.

  You should read at least one book on the subject of dressing for success in business. Don’t believe any of what you hear about the “new” acceptability of casual dress. You don’t ever want to find yourself selling against a competitor who looks a whole lot better than you do. Dress well when you visit customers. Make sure that you look like the kind of person a customer would be comfortable taking advice from.

  Use your best judgment to determine the most appropriate dress for you in selling to your customers in your market. What is most acceptable changes by industry and region. For example, you would dress differently if you were to call on bankers or senior executives than you would if you were selling back-hoes or grain driers to builders or farmers.

  Look the Part

  Your grooming is also important in determining the impression you make on your prospect, from the first meeting onward. The highest paid salespeople in almost every field tend to groom themselves in a conservative and understated way. Look at the pictures of the businesspeople in the “appointments” section of your local newspaper. They are always professional and businesslike, competent and believable in appearance. You should be as well.

  The simplest rule about good dress and grooming is that nothing should distract the customer from your face, your person, and your conversation. The customer should get an impression of a professional salesperson without being conscious of a specific article of clothing or element of your grooming.

  Accessories Can Help You or Hurt You

  The correct accessories blend well with your clothes and your overall appearance. They enhance your overall “look” without drawing attention. They are the appropriate color, design, and texture to add to your overall impression of professionalism. Look at yourself in a mirror before you head out to a sales call, and solicit the opinions of others.

  A Positive Mental Attitude

  The fourth part of the initial impression you make on the prospect is your attitude. As a rule, you should always be positive, friendly, optimistic, and cheerful when you are selling. Customers prefer to deal with nice people, people who seem helpful and open. If you have personal problems, leave them at home or keep them to yourself. Be a pleasant, easygoing person to do business with.

  Your Most Valuable Asset

  The second part of megacredibility is the reputation of your company. According to Theodore Leavitt of Harvard Business School, a company’s most valuable asset is “how it is known to its customers.” This reputation is made up of many factors that customers experience in dealing with the company.

  Fully 85 percent of sales made today are based on “word of mouth.” This consists of what other people say about your product and your services. It is how your company is thought of and talked about by customers and noncustomers in the marketplace. The better your reputation, the lower the perceived risk in buying from you. The more other customers speak well of you, the easier it is for new customers to accept your recommendations to go ahead with the purchase.

  Get It on Paper

  The third part of megacredibility is testimonials. These consist of letters, lists, photographs, and other third-party statements. All build confidence and lower the fear of making a buying mistake.

  One good letter from a satisfied customer may be all you need to convince a prospect that he or she is safe in buying from you. Make it a point to ask for a testimonial letter each time you get a positive comment from a customer. Carry the letters with you in plastic sleeves in a three-ring binder. They are incredibly powerful in building megacredibility.

  If you can, make a list of the people or companies that have bought from you. The longer the list or the better known the customers, the more powerful it is in building confidence.

  Another form of credibility is photographs or videos of happy customers. A picture is worth a thousand words when it comes to overcoming skepticism and building megacredibility in a sales conversation. Often people will not buy a product or service until they know who else has bought it and been happy with it. Be sure to volunteer this information clearly in your sales conversation.

  Put Your Best Foot Forward

  The fourth part of megacredibility is the presentation. A well-thought-out, completely professional, customer-focused presentation adds value to the product or service and actually increases the price you can charge for it. A planned and prepared presentation builds your credibility to a high level. This credibility may be all you need to overcome the fear and misgivings that hold most customers back.


  An excellent presentation is one where you match your product or service to the needs of the customer, exactly as the customer has told them to you in the questioning and listening part of the sales conversation. You show the customer that the exact benefits he or she wants are contained in what you sell. You avoid talking about things the customer has not expressed an interest in buying.

  Emphasize the Value

  The fifth ingredient of megacredibility is the product or service itself. Your presentation should demonstrate clearly that the product you offer is the ideal solution to the customer’s needs and that the value of what you sell greatly outweighs the price you are asking.

  The customer must be convinced that, all things considered, he or she will be better off with what you are selling than he or she would be with a competitive product or with the money that it costs.

  Here is the great rule for sales success: “Everything counts.”

  Everything counts! Everything you do in a sales situation either helps or hurts. It either moves you toward the sale or moves you away. It is either increasing your credibility or decreasing your credibility. But nothing is neutral. Everything counts. All top professionals know that everything counts. They leave nothing to chance. Neither should you.